Unlearning Hell
by jaistashu
Summary: While redeeming a demon might be a long and arduous process, Charlie is determined to give it her all. In order to redeem Angel Dust, Charlie has to start with his first lesson: how to be nice. What kind of teacher does Charlie expect to be if she has no understanding of what it means to earn a place in Hell and grow to be worthy of redemption?


"Okay!" Charlie chimed and smacked a piece of paper down on the Happy Hotel bar top.

Angel Dust watched as the princess's little black nails swung aside, revealing a crudely drawn person. There was certainly an attempt to cut the humanoid shape out from the rest of the paper, but the paper edges dipped in and out of the "line art." His unimpressed stare shifted from the paper boy to Charlie's bright and expectant grin.

"Be nice to him," she hummed and lifted her hand from the bar top to hook it with the other behind her back. With a lean forward, Charlie's head bobbed between looking at the ever-suffering paper boy and at Angel. After all, she'd have to give advice if Angel slipped up, so watching closely was a must!

Angel's mouth tugged into an amused smile. "It's a piece of paper."

"Well—," Charlie's confidence was halved pretty quickly, "—yeah, but there's no real human kids in Hell. So you have to be nice to...Stanley here. For your first exercise in working towards redemption."

Angel trailed a finger around the rim of one of the many shot glasses he'd emptied in the past hour. "Be nice to Stanley, eh? He's not a real kid. What am I gonna do? Call his Ma to pick him up? She might be paper, too. Oh, or a tree. She ain't goin' nowhere." He let out a snicker. "Nicest thing I could do to Stanley is put him out of his 2D misery." A sharp nail tapped holes into Stanley's chest. Charlie _really _needed some art classes. Angel swung back another shot, shuddered, and smacked the glass face down on the bar top. "Geez, Princess, you gotta fix up your—" Angel's words cut off when he saw Charlie's expression.

She'd been quiet during Angel's riff with her teeth digging into her bottom lip. Her focused stare seemed to be doing its best job covering up her bruised feelings like an art student pouring acrylic paints over a half-assed sketch and calling the finished piece "abstract." "My what?" Charlie's voice rang out much louder than she had anticipated, but it was important to give Angel another chance! Let him rethink what he was going to say. He might do it right!

"Your…" Angel's mouth was caught on the sound, and, in his drunken haze, he mouthed the word a few more times. "Your, your, your...your… You reeeeeee… Um. Fix up your drawin'. It's…" Angel leaned back and gazed up at nothing. Two of his hands splayed their fingers and wiggled them. "_Bad. _Unbelievable. I can't get into this acting if my co-star is a piece of paper with a face scrawled on it. I mean." Angel hooked a hand under his jaw and leaned on the bar top. "S'just not believable. I can't be nice to _things_. I'd look like a damn idiot."

Nope, not right. Not even close. Charlie let out a heavy sigh and turned the punctured Stanley over in her hands. She presented Stanley to Husk—a demon who was wisely opting out of the clunky lesson so far. "Husk, you could be nice to Stanley, right? It can't be _that _bad."

When faced with the cold truth or Charlie's hopeful face, Husk had to choose the honest answer rather than the cushy lie. It also helped that the honest answer allowed him to remain in his grumpy comfort zone. "It ain't good, kid." He reached a furry arm around the shot glass castle Angel was in the middle of fervently crafting and tumbled the project into a grey bin. "You can always use a rock, I guess. I dunno." Without wasting a second, Husk turned his back and dove into the task of dish-washing.

Charlie's pained smile fell entirely, and her feet hurried the rest of her away from the bar, although her thoughts opted to stay lingering. The shaky lines, the creepy eyes she couldn't simplify or sweeten up, the cut that went in and out of the marker line art—Stanley had one tiny foot in sobriety and the other too-large, too-square, too-cluttered-with-detail foot in a buy-one-get-ten-free tequila shots sale. As her feet carried her along the hotel halls, her head bobbed from side to side, waxing and waning over a mix of thoughts. Angel was mean. Like normal. It was only a shitty drawing, though. It's not like Angel ripped out Charlie's still-beating heart and played kickball with it.

Maybe it was a bad idea to have Angel act with such a straight man in a niceness routine gone wrong? This wasn't her best work! "Yeah," she hummed as her lips tugged into a smile, "I can do better than this." After all, how did she expect Angel to put his best foot forward and become the best being he could be if _she _didn't give her all too? A giggle bubbled in her throat as she ran off to her room. She couldn't wait to throw her best efforts into a brand new project.

* * *

"Okay!" Charlie smacked a bag of Everything onto her desk. As she opened it, Hell's finest craft supplies tumbled from its confines: wood fragments, steel shavings, homemade paints, highlighters, glue, ribbons, (donated) teeth, straw, and glitter (among a few other unrecognizables). "Best foot forward," she murmured to herself as she glued a couple teeth to a piece of driftwood.

A line of glue trailed from the teeth out to the edge of the wood before turning back. Glitter snowed down onto the sticky trail, and any loose pieces were swiftly fanned away. Charlie grouped the steel shavings together in a hairstyle that could've been fashioned by an electric chair and stuck the disaster above the teeth. As she plucked a particularly pink ribbon up from the rat's nest of patterns and colors, she faltered when she caught sight of the big picture. Stanley was turning out to be a mistake again. Sure, more effort was put into this version, but...

"Think, think, think." Charlie dropped the ribbon back in the pile and stood on her chair to get a bird's eye view of her unmade masterpiece. While keeping her eyes strictly on Stanley, she combed her fingers through her hair, pulling it back into a ponytail for optimal vision. "Am I doing all I can to make Stanley real?"

Nope. Well. What could she do better outside of trying to figure out a way to make brand-new, living, breathing life?

"Something not that…" Charlie stepped onto her desk and leaned over for a closer inspection. "A drawing's not real enough. Or. I can't make it real enough. And making Stanley out of this stuff might make him look worse. C'mon, Stanley! Speak to me!" She patted the warped driftwood, accidentally making Stanley headbang in the process. "You're too flat right now! Too fake! I can't liven you up when you can't even—"

What had Husk said? A rock? A rock would be a better Stanley than just paper? Why?

Her hopeful eyes widened bigger and bigger with each subsequent realization. "That's it!" She chimed, "Stanley needs a gut!" Charlie leapt down from her desk and charged out her door, shrugging off her ruby red coat along the way.

* * *

Charlie stood on the bank of a mix between blood, water, pollution, waste, and general ambiguities—which, luckily for her, might be housing the perfect ingredient to take Stanley in to the third dimension. With her mouth stretched taut in a _very_ reluctant line and her gaze a blank stare, Charlie rolled up her sleeves, her pant legs, and kicked off her shoes. She inhaled a long, deep breath before coughing the stench back out. Her reluctant expression broke, and she was faced with the reality she chose to parade through.

She took in a deep breath (stench aside).

For Angel.

She dipped a foot into the sludgy, chunky liquid.

For the Happy Hotel.

She waded in shin deep and gazed down at her reflection—broken by the different textures caught in the stream.

For her own success and her parents' pride.

She squeezed her eyes closed and sank her arms down into the mix. Charlie bit her bottom lip and dug her nails into the stream bed as different chunks of whateverthefuck bumped against her arms. Her fingers curled around a solid substance she'd managed to dig out of the stream bed, and she lifted it out of its water-esque confines. Her lips pulled into a hesitant smile as she turned the clay over in her stained hands. Her thumb rubbed gentle circles into the soft side of the malformed mess.

For Stanley.

Without wasting another moment, Charlie set the first handful of wet dirt in a plastic bag by the stream and went right to work digging up even more. After all, if she wanted to make the perfect Stanley, she had to be able to make mistakes.

* * *

Vaggie sat in a fold-up chair watching Charlie mix the mud she'd found. It gradually turned from a mix of straw, clumps of dirt and mud, and a generous amount of water into an even mixture with bits of straw poking out from time to time.

The pre-clay elements clung to Charlie's hands and arms. Some even stained her crisp white shirt and pink cheeks. Charlie's twisted, determined frown shot up into a grin as the mud—with some firm persuasion—formed into an even mixture.

"Look!" Charlie sang, "It's on it's way!"

Vaggie watched from the sidelines as Charlie hurried from a desk to another couple buckets, dragging a partially broken window screen behind her. Vaggie glanced down at Charlie's shoes which sat beside her on the concrete floor. She'd managed to guide Charlie into a garage for her messy project. Niffty was already working so hard polishing up the hotel. It'd be a shame to set it back with a mud project. "We could probably find a store with clay in it, hon."

"No, no, no. It's gotta be made with my best efforts." Charlie spread the mix over the window screen as the clay and water mix fell into the bucket below it, leaving bones, needles, rocks, and other solid questionables out. Charlie tossed aside the screen and gazed down at the mix. "Okay… And now to wait." She squatted beside the bucket.

After a few quiet moments passed, Vaggie stood and walked over to the bucket. She peered in to see that nothing had really changed. The clay was still an orange-brown slurry. "How long do you have to wait?"

"Well—," Charlie fell back on her behind and crossed her legs, still keeping an eye on her project, "—I have to wait until the water gets out. Or enough water gets out. I can't make Stanley if he's going to fall into a puddle. Then he'd be like my drawing again. Or like my wood sculpture. Nope, in order to be real, Stanley has to have a body."

Vaggie's thoughts tumbled around in her head as she tried to decode what Charlie meant. "You're not trying to create actual life, are you? That's kind of… I just don't think it's… Well, we already have the Hotel…"

"Eh?" Charlie's eyes snapped up to Vaggie's. "No! No, no, of course not!" She let out a little laugh. "I'm just making a clay sculpture so Angel can practice being nice. It's his first lesson in his redemption, and if it goes well, then I can use Stanley—," She jabbed a finger at the clay slurry, "—to start other demons on their redemption path. Stanley's an _investment. _The least I can do is wait until the clay's ready so I can give him a proper body."

Vaggie let out a soft sigh of relief and focused on the unmoving mix. After a few moments of silence, she spoke up again, "So we're waiting for the water to…?"

"Evaporate." Charlie stirred the liquid with a finger. "Can't have Stanley falling apart on me."

Being in Hell was an advantage, Vaggie thought. The heat definitely made water evaporate faster here than she remembered on Earth. "Hon. You can do fire stuff. Remember—" Wait, bringing up the interview with 666 News was bound to discourage Charlie again.

Charlie looked between Vaggie and the slip. Yeah, using fire powers was an option...but would that be taking the easy way out? Her head leaned closer and closer to the bucket as she muddled through her options. Fire powers'll definitely get the water separated from the clay, but what did that mean when it came to living as an example? What was she practicing here? What hardship came from this? Her gaze shot up to Vaggie with wide eyes filled with realization. "Uh-uh."

With a wince, Vaggie reached a hand out to Charlie's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to bring up—"

"No, Vaggie, I can't use fire on this. Think about it. If I'm going to go through all the hardship to make the clay to make Stanley, then I can't take the easy way out. That'd just be like going to buy clay from a craft store." Her posture straightened up. "That'd be like gluing fabric and sticks to a piece of driftwood! And _that's _not good enough. If I want to teach Angel how to be patient, then I have to remember this. I have to remember how hard it was to sit and wait for the clay to be ready."

Oh. Charlie wasn't even thinking about the 666 News disaster. Vaggie's worried frown softened into a smile, and she moved to kneel down next to Charlie. Her hand dragged her fingers from Charlie's shoulder to her back. The two sat in silence with Charlie focused on the dirty mix and with Vaggie rubbing her back. "You know, you still have to do hotel manager stuff, right? We still have to clean out a couple more rooms. I'm sure Niffty's got a handle on it, but a second set of helping hands can't hurt, can it?"

"Ah, big picture stuff." Charlie's lips twisted into a thoughtful frown, and she stood. "Can't ignore that, nope. That'd be lazy. Can't be lazy." She hooked her arms around one of Vaggie's arms and tried her damnedest to pull the other up to her feet without getting the dirty mix on her. "Guess I gotta clean up first." She wiggled her grimy fingers.

"You go ahead. I'll meet you in 2C. That one's in the worst shape." Vaggie jabbed a thumb over to the door leading into the hotel. "Oh, and don't forget your shoes."

Charlie's feet smacked against the concrete as she hurried to slip on her shoes and burst through the hotel door. "Bet I can beat you there!"

"Bet you can't!" The door swung closed after Charlie charged through it. Vaggie listened as the rushed footsteps gradually disappeared. Her eyes fell on the bucket.

After a good night's sleep, Charlie stepped into the garage to assess Stanley's status. Suspended above the bucket was a cloth filled with whateverthefuck—something solid, that's for sure. Charlie cupped the firm, round substance through the cloth before giving it a smack. Below the makeshift bag—was it made from dirty hotel sheets?—was the bucket. The last dredges of water dripped from the bottom.

With a gasp, Charlie cut down the dirty sheets and placed the present on the floor. With each layer of fabric peeled back, the matte shine of unworked clay showed more and more of itself to the light. Charlie's grin dug into her cheeks as she dragged a nail over the clay. An indented trail followed. Without wasting another second, Charlie hauled the dirty sheets onto her garage desk and spread them out for a protective workplace. She dragged the slip bucket over to her chair. The bucket held much less water than before—enough to fill a few mugs. It was a perfect supply for molding Stanley.

Her smile, still bright, shiny, and excited, radiated determination as she sectioned off clay and pinched the warm gray material into a body.

Stanley grew from a lump of clay into a solid being. His head was a nearly perfect, bald sphere with noodle arms and legs, all brought together with a body in the shape of a pear (or was it more like a phallic squash...?). Regardless, it didn't matter since Charlie found him in pieces a day later in her makeshift kiln.

Her black nails trailed over the ceramic fragments and then tapped against an edge. "Why would he explode? Maybe it was... Was he in there too long?" She patted a hand against the inside of the modest kiln; it was a smaller fireplace with a stone big enough to cover the opening. The fire had been out for a while, and the inside was cool. Charlie let out a huff, letting frustration get the better of her as she swept up Stanley's pieces into her arms before dumping him on her garage desk.

"Was it too hot? Was it too long? Is something wrong with _my _clay?" With each question she tapped a Stanley shard against the desk. "Oh, why couldn't you keep it together, Stanley?" She groaned and collapsed into her chair, eyeing the pieces. "Why go all to pieces when I'm so close?!" The tips of her fingers turned white as she squeezed the shard she held. "You're just clay! Why is it so temperamental?" She threw the shard down at the concrete floor.

The brittle shard let out a short-lived chime at the impact, shattering apart.

Charlie's frustrated scowl softened into a disappointed frown. "Because it just is, I guess," she whispered before looking to her desk. Her notebook was propped against the wall with Stanley's original design taped to a page. "You're just like that, aren't you?" A corner of her lips tucked into a tentative smile. "Nervous under pressure. Just falling right to pieces. And… Shouting and throwing you around probably only makes it…" She noted the pieces of Stanley on the floor. "Probably just makes it worse, huh?"

Stanley said nothing.

"Okay, well… I've been in tough situations like that. Sometimes on my own. Sometimes Vaggie helps out." Charlie notably felt her phone in her pocket—a reminder of her many unanswered messages sent out to Mom. She let out a soft laugh. "Silly me," she murmured, "you're trying your best to come out of that clay. And here I am yelling at you. You can't help it."

Charlie stood. "So!" She dug her fingers into the original hunk of clay and tore off another rough draft. "Guess we gotta start working on how to make it easier for you to come out." Figuring out how to help was the first step, she supposed. Guess we have to figure out how to give Stanley his best chance.

* * *

"Vaggie, look!" Charlie pulled Vaggie into her room. "Look, look. It took a few days, but I did it! Just look!" She swung her arm over to her craft desk, fingers spread, to present her creation.

Vaggie looked over the cluttered desk to see a fired clay figure sitting on the edge, seemingly kicking his feet. Of course, it wasn't moving. It was clay. Oh, but Charlie had sculpted it in such a way… Vaggie just couldn't help but smile at the thought. "He looks like he's having fun. What's…? Is that yours?" Vaggie trailed a finger down Stanley's head along some blonde hair Charlie had stuck on the back.

"Yeah!" Charlie smacked some of her hair over her shoulder and out of the way before gently curling a finger under the hair she'd glued to Stanley's head. "He was looking pretty bald, and I didn't think he'd like that so I cut off some of my hair—I have so much anyway—and gave it to him."

"I think that's a voodoo doll."

"Nah, nah, he's Stanley, not me. It's totally fine." Charlie gazed at her little clay creation with pride.

Vaggie's gaze traveled over the rest of the desk, catching sight of shattered clay remains, a couple humanoid sculptures with cracks, and a close-to-perfect sphere completely intact with a small hole pierced through the side. Her eyes fell on Stanley the...Sixth? Who knew how many tries Charlie had to go through to get him perfect?

Charlie's uneven hair section fell over her shoulder as she murmured positive phrases to Stanley. As practice. Probably.

Vaggie dug a nail into her striped glove. "Well… He looks great, hon. It's just…"

"Eh?" Charlie looked up to Vaggie from where she was squatting in front of Stanley. "Just what? Is something wrong with him?"

"He's just a little naked." Vaggie tugged off her glove. "And it doesn't feel right to give our new employee a dress made out of cardboard, so…" She dangled her glove in front of Charlie before draping it over Stanley's knees. "I'll donate it to him. We can't have a naked employee running around, can we?"

A giggle bubbled up in Charlie's throat. "Nah, you're right." She stood up, scooping up the glove as she went, and plucked a thread cutter out of a sewing drawer. She conjured up another accent as she tucked the thread cutter under the first stitch: "C'mon, Stanley! We have to get you in some proper clothes before someone calls the authorities." Charlie paused, resting the thread cutter against Vaggie's glove. She gave Vaggie a grateful smile. "Thanks, Vaggie," she spoke free of any special accent.

"Oh, man!" A shrill voice rang out from the fireplace. "What happened in here?" Niffty poked her head out of Charlie's fireplace. "I leave it alone for a couple days and you got a jail growing in here!" In seconds, she was out and turning an iron grate over in her hands, inspecting it. She whipped out a feather duster as her vision skipped around between the grate, the clay shards, and the charred wood at the bottom of the fireplace. It was easier to keep watch over the firing clay when Charlie had built a second kiln in her room.

"Oh, hey, Niffty! Wait!" Charlie waved her hands towards the maid to try and put her on pause. "It's okay. You can leave it like that. I was using it to make Stanley!" She stepped aside and presented Stanley similarly as she had to Vaggie.

Still frozen in place, Niffty looked over to the humanoid block of clay sitting on the edge of Charlie's desk. "Oh, you bake!" In seconds, she was standing on the desk, iron grate left forgotten by the fireside. "The hair's a mess! Not presentable at all, nope." Her nimble fingers separated the hair into three sections and tossed them over each other until she reached the end mere moments later. "Now it's all out of the way! Perfect for business. Ah. Um." Nothing was suitable to _tie _it back, though.

"Wow, Niffty, that looks—"

"Oh!" With one hand, Niffty tore off the hem of her dress and tied the end of the braid, leaving it in a pretty bow. "There we go." She bent the edge of her skirt, leapt down from the desk, and confiscated a sewing needle and thread from the open sewing drawer. "Stanley's all ready." She sewed up the new hem of her dress as she walked out of Charlie's room. "Just give me a holler when you want that fireplace all fixed up!" She called back from the hall.

* * *

"Here he is! Say hello to Stanley the Sixth!" Charlie delicately placed the newest Happy Hotel employee down on the bar top, gingerly positioning him so his frozen kicking legs could hang off the edge of the bar.

Angel's index finger tapped against his glass—a half-full sex on the beach. Stanley stared out at the hotel entrance with his grey-striped dress tucked to cover his butt. An uneven flower-shape fabric was sewn onto his chest, and his dress was sleeveless. It wasn't Angel's preference, but it looked nice on the little clay thing. The red ribbon was the real accent piece. "The Sixth?" He lifted an eyebrow and took a sip of the water Husk had provided.

"Yeah!" Charlie simply _glowed _with pride in her work. "I tried making him in wood, but it didn't work out—"

"Too hard?" Angel grinned.

"Yeah, yeah, so then I thought wood would be too easy—"

"Usually is."

"_Angel, _focus." Charlie ran a finger down Stanley's braid. "I thought that you were right. It's probably hard to be nice to a drawing, so I thought if I found someone easier to practice on, then it'd be a lot easier for you." She gave Angel a bright (and hopeful) smile.

Angel stared down at the clay doll. "Well… He's a lot better than Stanley the First."

Charlie nodded, eager for progress. "He's going to be my teaching assistant." She settled on a bar stool. "So, Angel," she hummed, "in order to be nice… Maybe you could start with...giving Stanley a compliment?"

Angel bit the inside of his cheek as he looked Stanley over. Maybe… Nice log-warmer. Love the striped pattern. Funny, yeah, but mean. Maybe… Nice dress! I'll have to borrow it next time I'm a foot tall? Nah, that'd still insult his height. _Maybe… _"I like your ribbon, Stanley. It's a real ass-kicking red." He tapped a couple fingers against the bar top. "Maybe..." The skin beneath Angel's cheek fluff darkened with slight embarrassment. "If it's cool with you, I could borrow it some time?"

After a pause, Charlie spoke up, "That was really nice, Angel. A great first attempt."

Hearing some genuine praise about something so innocent awakened a tiny bit of pride within Angel. Oh, he heard praise all the time in his line of work, and even Charlie was one to lay it on pretty thick, but the short-lived praise helped Angel sit up a little straighter and smile a little easier. "It was nothin'," he hummed and took a sip of his cocktail as he eyed Stanley. "Watch this." He spoke up, "Hey, Stanley, you look pretty thirsty. You drink?"

The bar was quiet in response. But Stanley's braid shifted ever so slightly with the air conditioning's help.

"I see. Pretty shy, eh?" Angel dragged the rest of his cocktail over the bar top and set it beside Stanley. "Husk made me this big drink. It'd be sweet if you helped me finish it off." He mixed the drink with his straw, clinking the ice against the glass.

Charlie's smile dug into her pink cheeks as she watched Angel act out the scene. She tore her eyes away for a moment as curiosity tugged at her attention. Where was Angel's usual pyramid of shot glasses? There was the water glass—a positive sign that Husk was following Charlie's bar rules—and the cocktail glass, but no shot glasses in sight. She peered over the bar top to take a look at the sink and the drying rack. No shot glasses.

"Ah, well. Guess you're more of a water-drinker. That's alright." Angel finished off the rest of his drink and set his empty glass beside his water glass. "See you around, Charlie. Stanny, I'm borrowing that bow later." Angel stood, gave Charlie a quick wave and sauntered off to his room.

Charlie was practically weightless with joy. She gave Husk a bright grin—who offered her a much softer frown than normal in return—and then smoothed Stanley's dress skirt. "Great job, teaching assistant. We'll cover step two tomorrow."


End file.
